In a happy coincidence, Friday the 13th was also Orthodox New Year’s Eve, and if the party Chervona threw at Dante’s is any indication, 2012 will be awesome. A few recollections from the night linger through the night’s haze. The Show Before the Show I call it Old New Year at Soup-n-Vodka Kitchen: a small pre-party with kapustnica, vodka, and cheap beer. The warm-up works so well I forget about the clock and don’t want to go anywhere. Still giggling at the detour sign a few blocks back that said "MORISON BR EAST DETOUR", I […] Continue reading >

And judging from Chervona’s Xmas video shoot a month ago, a good one too! In fact, most, if not all, of the good people who populated and helped shoot the video (below, includes American Robotnik in a snow-white ushanka) will be in attendance at Dante’s on Friday the 13th. Tickets may even still be available. According to Stephanie Salvey’s intro to the reprint [pdf] of my article about the video shoot on Oregon Music News, “Each year around this time the cheapest round trip to Russia is a ticket to Chervona’s Old Russian New […] Continue reading >

I discovered the band Chervona by missing their street concert at the Polish Festival. I listened to their music online every time I postponed going to one of their bi-monthly shows around town. So I was going to be damned if I were to miss the video shoot for their Xmas song “Bottoms Up”. Advertised on Facebook with a call for talent, extras, and production help, the shoot took place last Thursday, December 8th, 2011, at Lents Commons, a Southeast Portland Coffee House. The “Russian genius painter Andrey Nedashkovskiy” created a beautiful, […] Continue reading >

“The Carnival Is Over” by Dead Can Dance, which appeared on their album Into the Labyrinth (1993) and the best-of compilation Wake (2003). Directing the 1994 video was Ondrej Rudavský, a Slovak émigré living in the U.S. since 1986.

Enough! Bob Dylan has just tossed the final straw onto my music library’s back. For years now, I’ve been discovering that, rather than created by the act I knew as its author, song after song had been spawned by Bob Dylan years before I was born. In quiet, desperate disbelief I’ve been listening to Bob Dylan dismantle my musical reality. What happened? For sentimental reasons I bought the Siouxsie and the Banshees’ compilation Twice Upon a Time/The Singles, where I was delighted to hear “This Wheel’s on Fire”, the title song from […] Continue reading >

Though Seattle-based Kultur Shock is one of my favorite transplant bands, I only learned about their latest, February release Ministry of Kultur while doing research for American Robotnik. Having not listened to their music for a while, I decided to judge the band’s fifth studio album (7th overall) in the context of their entire production: to get a real sense of where Kultur Shock stand today, I listened to all their studio albums in chronological order. The experience reminded me of my early trail runs as well as of my acculturation journey toward […] Continue reading >

Fall seems to be the season for heritage festivals. Over the past three weekends here in Portland, Oregon, Serbian, Polish, and Greek festivals took place. I had a chance to attend the Polish and Greek one. Today’s first of two posts looks at the festival experiences (Part Two next week will tackle heritage festivals in general). 5th Annual Serbian Fest I learned about Serbian Fest 2011 the week after it took place from Vickie Kavanagh’s preview article on OregonLive.com. Excerpt: Traditional music, entertainment, activities and food will be featured at […] Continue reading >

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American Robotnik explores the quest of becoming a Central European American: the journey of one Slovak man, Peter Korchnak, settling in the United States and the wonders of life as a transplant.Continue reading →